Agile Foundations for Business Analysts


An introduction to Agile software development for Business Analysts including Scrum and User Stories

This course will provide Business Analysts with an understanding of what Agile software development is, how Agile development differs from traditional software development - and how it does not. Business Analyst's role on an Agile team is described together with the additional tools, techniques and approaches available.

This course last 2 or 3 days. When run as a 2 day course this is very intensive, attendees are expecteds to be available from 9am to 6pm. In addition, the three day version contains extra material (see below).

Highlights

  • What Agile software development is and how it differs from traditional software development.
  • The basics of the main Agile methods: Scrum and XP, plus the relationship of Agile to Lean.
  • How Agile software projects and teams are organised and the roles on these teams.
  • Why the role of the Business Analysis in Agile is both essential too, and frequently overlooked on Agile teams.
  • Tools Business Analysis can use on Agile teams to accelerate delivery, increase business value and ensure teams do the right thing.

Who

This course is specifically designed for professional Business Analysts and those charged with performing Business Analysis on a software team. Architects, Project Managers and Software Engineers who need to provide analysis will benefit from this course too.

Prerequisites

Participants are expected to have experience undertaking Business Analysis on software development projects.

Course contents

Agile & Scrum Overview
  • What is Agile software development?
  • Review of Scrum and Extreme Programming (XP) methods
  • The relationship between Agile, Scrum and other methods
  • Benefits of Agile and Scrum
  • Empirical processes control
  • Agile Manifesto: values and principles
  • Self-organizing teams
Sprints and Iterations
  • Sprint Cycle
  • Planning
  • Sprint Backlog
  • Commitment
  • Daily Scrum
  • Sprint Reviews
  • Retrospectives
  • Demonstrations
  • Release
  • Velocity
  • Sprint Goal
  • Abnormal Termination
Practices
  • Test Driven Development (TDD) and Acceptance Test Driven Development (ATDD)
  • Refactoring
  • Continuous integration
  • Work breakdown
  • Estimation with Planning Poker
  • Vertical teams
  • Quality
  • Risk management
  • Burn-down and burn-up charts
  • Visibility
  • Definition of Done
  • Continuous improvement “Kaizen”
Roles
  • Scrum Master
  • Product Owner, Customer and Business Analyst
  • Team
  • Stakeholders
Requirements and Tools for Agile Business Analysis
  • Product Owner role
  • Customer involvement
  • User Stories: Epics, Features and Tasks
  • User Stories as placeholders
  • INVEST rules
  • Story estimation
  • Feature injection and example modelling
  • Product Backlog management
  • Prioritization: MoSCoW rules and absolute
  • Managing backlogs
  • Assigning business value
How Agile Affects Business Analysis
  • Short iterations and just-in-time analysis
  • Goal directed projects
  • Embedded Business Analysts
  • A/TDD and model driven analysis
  • Communication over documentation
  • Up-front QA with BA
  • Business value over requirements or features

Additions to 3-day course
  • Agile contracts between suppliers and clients
  • Story mapping
  • Customer time management
  • More depth on some of the above subjects, e.g. Scrum practices, Testing and Feature Injection
  • In addition more time is available to discuss client specific issues and questions

Feedback about this course
At the end of every course participants complete and assessment form. On recent (2-day) courses participants were asked to answer seven questions on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being “No/Poor” and 10 being “Yes/Good”.

Question Average response (September 2011) Average (October 2011)
Did the course meet your objectives? 8.21 8.88
Didi you enjoy the course? 9.14 9.13
Did you learn much? 8.43 7.5
Did the content meet your requirements? 8.14 8.13
Will the course help you do your job better? 8.00 8.38
How was the instructor? 9.00 9.75
Would you recommend this course? 9.14 10

More comments about Software Strategy courses and a participant’s review of the 3-day Agile BA can be found here.

For more information about this course and to enquire about availability please contact Software Strategy.